Chapter 2

"You have nothing to ask me?" His voice was dangerously low.

I calmly pushed a file across the corner of my desk.

"Sinaloa is pushing for the payment. Thirty million in clean funds, wired within seventy-two hours. It needs your signature."

"About last night. About Camilla." He leaned over the desk, his huge frame towering over me. "Aurora, are you sure you have nothing to say?"

Camilla's words from my past life echoed in my head.

"Honey, you have to marry Aurora. She controls the family's entire financial network."

That was the line that convinced him I had forced his hand.

"I'm sure," I said, looking up. "Congratulations on finding true love, Boss."

A flash of anger crossed Cassian's face.

He stared at me for a long time. Then he turned and left without another word.

The door slammed shut.

That night, two in the morning.

I came out of the shower and saw a line of light under my study door.

I hadn't left that lamp on.

I pushed the door open. Cassian was sitting in my chair.

In his hands was the Irrevocable Trust Transfer Agreement.

Open beside it was my private ledger. The one I’d kept for six years, written in my own blood and tears.

My blood ran cold.

That ledger held everything.

March 2019: Hush money for the third Ricci brother, $120,000. Paid from my personal account.

August 2020: Cleanup for the FBI informant Johnson's "car accident," $850,000. Paid for with a lien against my mother's inheritance.

January 2021: Body disposal and family pacification after Cassian executed the traitor Moretti, $470,000...

Every single entry was a bloody mess I'd cleaned up behind his back. I used the only clean money I had to do it.

And the trust agreement. The beneficiary was written in clear, block letters: Cassian Vitelli.

Five million dollars. Everything my mother had left me.

My plan was, if the day ever came when everyone betrayed him, when he fell from his throne, I would be there to catch him.

Even if he never knew.

"Aurora." Cassian looked up. His voice was terrifyingly calm. "What were you saving these for?"

"I..."

"The day I go broke? The day I come crawling to you for help?"

I couldn't breathe.

"Or maybe—" He stood up slowly, placing the agreement back on the desk. He handled it gently, like a piece of evidence. "You wanted the Elders to see this? To prove you're the one who really deserves to stand by my side?"

The cold crept through my veins.

A vise clamped around my chest. My eyes burned, but I refused to let him see the tears.

Explanations were useless. To him, my love would always be a tactic.

"No," I heard my own broken voice. "It's just... a useless piece of paper."

"Right," he said softly. "A useless piece of paper, then."

He didn't tear it up.

He just placed the agreement and the ledger back where he found them.

That controlled indifference hurt more than if he had ripped them to shreds.

He walked to the door and stopped, his back to me.

"Camilla and I are getting married on the 30th. At St. Patrick's."

"You'd better learn your place."

The door closed softly behind him.

I sank to my knees. My hands trembled as I opened the ledger.

Every page was six years of my life, written line by line. Every line was love I thought he might one day see.

But to him, it was all just a "tactic."

A tool I was using to "blackmail" him.

I took the ledger and the agreement and threw them into the fireplace.

As the flames rose, my ten-year love affair burned to ashes.

The next morning, I called my Swiss bank.

"Mr. Richardson, the five-million-dollar trust my mother left me. I want to liquidate the entire thing."

I never expected what happened next. Less than two hours after I hung up, my study door was thrown open.

Cassian stormed in. He slapped a fax from the Swiss bank onto my desk.

It was stamped with the Vitelli family crest and a big, red "FROZEN."

"Aurora, what the hell do you think you're doing?" he loomed over me. "Moving funds behind my back? Are you planning to hire someone to make trouble for Camilla before my wedding?"

I stared at the freeze order. It felt like a giant hand was squeezing my heart.

"That's my mother's inheritance," I said, my voice shaking. "It doesn't belong to the Vitelli family."

"As long as you live under my roof, you are my ward. Every penny to your name is under my control," Cassian sneered. "Did you really think you could pull this money out and blackmail me into calling off my wedding?"

"I didn't—"

"Save it!" he cut me off. "Drop your pathetic little games. Until you learn your place and stop being hostile to Camilla, you won't see a single dime."

He turned and left.

The door slammed shut. I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

I circled the wedding date on my calendar. I made a promise to myself.

Money or no money, before he and Camilla got married, I would be gone for good.